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Agentic commerce is creating a hiring gap most Shopify agencies and brands have not even named yet

Over the last few months I have had a familiar set of conversations with Shopify agencies and Shopify merchants.

They are not really about tooling. They are about capability.

The question underneath most of them is this. If the buying journey is increasingly shaped by AI, and if more of the purchase flow starts to happen inside conversational interfaces, do we have the people in place who know how to build, run, and improve that world.

Most teams do not. Most agencies do not. And that gap is already showing up in hiring.

In the next 6 to 12 months, I think the winners will be the ones who treat this as a people and operating model shift, not a feature update.

The context, quickly, why this is happening

Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, developed with partners including Shopify, is part of a broader move toward agentic commerce. In plain English, it points to a world where customers express intent in an AI interface, and the purchase can be completed reliably without the same old loop of tabs, product pages and checkout friction.

That will not replace websites overnight, but it does change the centre of gravity. Discovery, decisioning, and even conversion can start to happen in places brands and agencies do not fully control today.

If that is true, then the most valuable work shifts upstream. Less time spent purely on building pages, more time spent on making product data, commercial logic, experience, and operations machine readable, consistent and optimised for intent based journeys.

That is why the talent problem matters more than the protocol itself.

The early signal we are already seeing in the market

This is not hypothetical for the Shopify ecosystem.

A UK agency and a Finnish agency, both Shopify focused, have told us they are struggling to find enough strong solutions consultants and lead consultants. These are the people who can translate client needs into platform decisions and delivery reality, and they are already in short supply.

A Shopify agency in the Netherlands has reached out asking how to build out an engineering team that is more AI savvy, more prompt focused, and capable of what they described as book ending AI, meaning engineers who can work effectively with AI tools while still owning quality, maintainability and outcomes.

On the merchant side, a UK Shopify agency asked for support hiring around AI strategy focused on CX and the customer front end, because their clients are asking the questions but nobody internally owns the answers.

All of that is a talent signal. The market is trying to staff for a shift that has not yet been formalised into neat job titles.

Gentian Shero, Co-Founder and CSO at Shero Commerce, put it well:

The biggest mistake I see right now is treating AI readiness as a technology problem. It is an operations and people problem. The merchants with clean data, clear ownership, and someone accountable for how AI fits into their commercial model will be ready when agentic commerce scales. Everyone else will be scrambling. For agencies, the question is simple: if your client’s customer never visits a website, where does your value sit? The ones building around data strategy, AI enablement, and commercial operations have a future. The ones still selling builds as the whole offer will have a problem.

The four role shapes that will matter most

These are not the only roles that will evolve, but if you are an agency founder, a delivery leader, or a merchant running a Shopify programme, these four shapes are the ones that stop this becoming a collection of disconnected experiments.

1. Agentic Commerce Lead, sometimes called AI Strategy Lead

What they do day to day They own the roadmap and the decisions. They decide what is being tested, why it matters commercially, and how it gets rolled out without breaking customer experience or operations. They align product, engineering, CX, and commercial teams so AI does not become everybody’s side project and nobody’s priority.

What backgrounds translate well You rarely find this person with a perfect title. They tend to come from digital product leadership, eCommerce leadership, strategy and consulting, platform partnerships, or strong solution consulting backgrounds where they have operated at the intersection of commercial goals and technology reality.

What a good job description actually focuses on Ownership, governance, prioritisation, and commercial outcomes. Not prompt engineering. Not an AI evangelist. Someone who can make decisions and bring people with them.

2. Product and Data Architect with an AI focus

What they do day to day They make the catalogue and commerce data usable for machines, not just humans. That includes product attributes, taxonomy, variants, availability, pricing logic, promotions, and the operational rules that sit behind the scenes. They also tend to be the person who stops AI initiatives failing because the underlying data is messy or inconsistent.

What backgrounds translate well PIM and MDM specialists, feed management, merchandising operations, ecommerce architecture, data product roles, CMS and DXP data heavy environments, and sometimes very strong platform engineers with a data leaning mindset.

What a good job description focuses on Structured data, catalogue health, commercial rules, integration awareness, and the ability to work with merchandisers and engineers equally well.

3. AI Experience and Conversation Designer

What they do day to day They shape how a brand appears inside AI driven journeys. They think about how customers ask questions, how products are surfaced, what the decision flow looks like, and how trust is built when the interface is not a traditional website. They also work closely with CX to make sure the experience is coherent from discovery through to support.

What backgrounds translate well UX content, service design, CRO leadership, lifecycle and CRM journey specialists, customer experience design, and anyone who has built guided selling experiences, quizzes, configurators, or complex assisted journeys.

What a good job description focuses on Decision journeys, clarity, trust signals, information design, and collaboration with CX and product.

4. Commercial Operations and Enablement Lead

What they do day to day They connect the strategy to reality. They make sure fulfilment, returns, customer service, and commercial reporting can cope with new buying behaviours. They also help answer the awkward questions about margin, performance measurement, and what success looks like when the old signals become less reliable.

What backgrounds translate well Trading and merchandising leads, revenue operations, commercial analytics, fulfilment operations leadership, customer operations, and people who have owned performance across multi channel commerce.

What a good job description focuses on Commercial ownership, operational coordination, performance measurement, and the ability to turn theory into repeatable execution.

The important point is that not every business needs to hire four net new people tomorrow. Plenty of organisations will evolve existing roles. The risk is simply having no clear ownership at all.

Where you actually find these people, because the titles do not exist yet

This is the part nobody talks about, but it is the practical blocker.

If you search for agentic commerce lead in most markets, you will not get a clean set of candidates. The way to hire for this is to recruit from adjacent backgrounds and hire for capability, then shape the role.

At Simply Commerce, we sit across Europe, the UK and the US with both contract and permanent talent pools, covering commerce, POS, CMS, PIM, and the wider DXP layer. We see where the transferable skills actually live because we are speaking to these people every day, not reading about them.

In practice, the best hires often come from solution consulting, product leadership, digital strategy, data heavy commerce and DXP roles, and commercial operations leadership. The mistake we see agencies make is hiring someone who can talk about AI, but cannot run a programme, influence stakeholders, or tie decisions back to commercial outcomes.

Another common mistake is assuming your engineering team will just absorb this naturally. Some engineers will, especially those already using AI tools responsibly. Many will not. You need a deliberate plan for capability building, not a hope based strategy.

What to do in the next 6 to 12 months

If you are a Shopify agency, I would focus on three things.

First, decide whether you want to lead on this with clients or react when they ask. That decision shapes your service roadmap and your hiring plan.
Second, build a readiness assessment offer. Something simple and repeatable that looks at data quality, commercial rules, operational constraints, and where AI driven journeys could realistically add value for your client base.
Third, invest in one or two of these role shapes early, even if you start with a fractional hire or a senior consultant. Waiting until clients demand it usually means you are hiring in a panic, and that is when you overpay and underhire.

If you are a merchant, the biggest win is clarity. Decide who owns this internally, clean up the basics, and make sure your partners can talk about more than storefronts and build projects. If your organisation cannot name who is accountable for AI commerce decisions, then you are not yet taking it seriously, even if you are running experiments.

Closing thoughts

UCP and agentic commerce will keep evolving, and nobody should pretend they can predict the exact timeline. What we can say with confidence is that the talent market is already moving, and agencies and merchants are already feeling the gaps.

The organisations that do well in the next 6 to 12 months will not be the ones who collect the most AI tools. They will be the ones who build the clearest ownership, hire for the right capabilities, and create teams that can turn a shift in interface into a shift in commercial performance.

Tim Roedel | Managing Director | Simply Commerce

With input from Gentian Shero at Shero Commerce: If you want to compare notes on what you are seeing, feel free to message Gentian or myself on LinkedIn

When it comes to interviews, most advice focuses on how to impress. How to answer questions. How to sell your experience. How to stand out.

But if you only remember one thing, remember this: the questions to ask at the end of an interview are not a formality. They are your best opportunity to turn a polished job pitch into something real, so you can decide whether this move actually gives you what you are looking for.

Because most people are not leaving a role for “something different”. They are leaving for something specific. Better progression. Proper training. A manager who does not disappear when it matters. Flexibility that exists in practice, not just in a policy document. A client scope that stretches you, or a platform roadmap you can genuinely influence.

In 2026, with hiring increasingly shaped by automation and AI screening, asking smarter questions is also how you bring the process back to humans. SHRM has been clear that the hiring experience is under strain on both sides, and that the answer is not more speed, but more trust and judgement. That trust starts with real conversations, not rehearsed ones.

What follows is a practical way to prepare questions that do not feel scripted, do not waste time, and actually help you make a confident decision.

Stage 1: Get clear on your “why” before you get clever with questions

Most end-of-interview questions fail because they are generic, not because they are “bad”. If you ask generic questions, you get generic answers, and you leave with vibes instead of evidence.

Start here. What are your top three non-negotiables?

For digital commerce roles, the usual drivers are:

Progression and career scope
Training, coaching, and feedback
Culture and ways of working
Flexibility and boundaries
Team health and leadership
Client scope, stakeholder access, and decision making
Modern tools, realistic delivery, and technical debt (even in non-technical roles)

Once you know your three, you can ask questions that are pointed without being awkward.

Stage 2: Ask “evidence” questions, not “opinion” questions

A good end-of-interview question does one of three things:

1 – Forces clarity on expectations
2 – Reveals how decisions actually get made
3 – Gives you a story, not a slogan

A useful trick is to swap “Do you…” for “Can you give me an example of…”

Instead of: “Do you support development?”

Try: “Can you tell me about the last person who progressed from this team, and what enabled that step up?”

Same topic, completely different answer.

Stage 3: Use this short set of questions, picked by what you care about

By the time you reach the end of an interview, the dynamic has usually shifted. The formal questioning is done, the pace has slowed, and the conversation often becomes more relaxed. This is exactly why the questions you ask here carry more weight than many people realise.

How you ask matters as much as what you ask. These questions should feel curious, not confrontational. Calm, considered delivery signals confidence. Good eye contact, a steady pace and a willingness to listen all matter. You are not interrogating. You are sense-checking.

A useful mindset is this: ask as someone imagining themselves in the role, not as someone trying to “win” the interview. Framing questions from that perspective naturally leads to better answers.

You do not need to ask everything. Pick five or six questions that genuinely map back to your original reason for looking. Depth beats volume every time.

Below are question sets you can draw from, depending on what matters most to you.

1) Progression and scope

(When you want growth, not just a change of scenery)

“What does success look like in the first 90 days, and then by month 12?”
“What would need to be true for someone in this role to earn a promotion here?”
“Where have people in this role typically gone next?”
“What tends to hold people back from progressing here?”
“How much of progression is driven by performance versus timing or headcount?”

Listen for specificity. Clear answers usually indicate a role that is understood internally, not one that has been created in a rush.

2) Training, feedback and support

(When development and learning are a key driver for your move)

“How do you coach performance day to day, not just in review cycles?”
“If I joined and you noticed I was stuck after a few weeks, what would you do?”
“What does good performance feedback look like in this team?”
“Who would I learn the most from here, and how does that learning actually happen?”
“How do you balance delivery pressure with giving people time to develop?”

Strong teams can explain how learning fits into real work, not just formal programmes.

3) Culture and ways of working

(When environment and leadership style matter)

“How do decisions get made when commercial and technical priorities clash?”
“What behaviours tend to get rewarded here, and which do not?”
“How does the team handle disagreement or challenge?”
“What does leadership do when things do not go to plan?”
“How would the team describe the culture during a difficult period, not a good one?”

Pay attention not just to the answer, but to how comfortable the interviewer seems giving it.

4) Flexibility and boundaries

(When sustainability and balance are non-negotiable)

“What does flexibility look like in practice over a typical month?”
“How do you protect focus time and avoid meetings taking over?”
“What happens when priorities collide or deadlines stack up?”
“How do leaders here role-model healthy boundaries?”
“When was the last time the team worked late or out of hours, and why?”

Honest answers here often include examples, not absolutes.

5) Client scope and stakeholder access

(When influence and exposure are important)

“Who are the key stakeholders I would need to win over?”
“Where does this team sit when priorities shift?”
“How visible is this role to senior leadership?”
“What kind of stakeholder challenges should I expect in the first six months?”
“Where does this role have the most influence, and where does it need to negotiate?”

These questions help you understand whether you will be shaping decisions or simply receiving them.

6) Risk, reality and what is not in the job description

(When you want to avoid surprises)

“What would make someone struggle in this role?”
“What is still not working as well as you would like it to?”
“What assumptions have been made about this hire that might not yet be tested?”
“What would you change about the role if you could?”
“What do you think will be the hardest part of this job in the first year?”

These questions often surface the most useful insights of the entire interview.

Stage 4: Close with one question that changes the dynamic

If you have asked good questions, you have earned the right to ask a direct one.

Try:

“Is there anything you have seen today that makes you hesitate about my fit, so I can address it now?”

This does two things. It gives you a chance to clarify. And it signals maturity, because you’re not waiting for feedback weeks later that you cannot act on.

There is also a growing pattern in hiring where interviewers deliberately start by asking candidates to ask a question first, because it quickly reveals preparation and intent. You can use that same energy at the end, calmly and professionally. 

A final word on asking the right questions

The end of an interview is not about filling silence or proving enthusiasm. It is about clarity.

A quick reality check after the call:

Did they answer with examples, or principles?
Could they explain priorities and trade offs, or did everything sound “fine”?
Did you learn anything you could not have learned from the job description?
Did the answers move you closer to your original “why”?

If you ask the right questions, calmly and with intent, you leave the conversation with something far more valuable than a good impression. You leave with information. Information about how decisions are made, how people are supported, how success is measured and whether the role genuinely aligns with what you are looking for next.

Strong candidates do not rush this moment. They take it seriously because they understand that accepting the wrong role is far more costly than missing out on the right one.

The best interviews feel balanced. Both sides leave having learned something. When that happens, even a “no” is useful, and a “yes” feels considered rather than reactive.

If you walk out of an interview with more clarity than you had when you walked in, you have used that final question well.

About Simply Commerce

Simply Commerce is a specialist digital commerce recruitment partner. We work closely with candidates throughout the hiring process, helping them prepare; not just to secure an offer, but to make the right move.

That means we actively coach candidates on how to assess roles properly, how to ask better questions in interviews, and how to sense-check what they are being told against the reality of the market. If you are considering a new role in digital commerce and want honest insight into culture, progression and long-term fit, we are always happy to have a conversation.